As a lawyer, legislator, and presi- dent, Abraham Lincoln practiced persuasion with logic and stories. Because “so few [words] contained the xact coloring, power, and shape of his ideas,” explained his law partner Wil- liam Herndon, Lincoln resorted to “sto- ries, maxims, and jokes…to clothe his ideas, that they might be comprehend- ed.” 1 Twenty-four years of trying cases in the courthouses of central Illinois taught Lincoln how to shred specious arguments, the same old ones that still show up in the briefs of opposing counsel (never in your own, of course), as
abundant in the Land of Starbucks and
Westlaw as in the Land of Lincoln and
Blackstone. Here are some of Lincoln’s
plain, yet pithy, rejoinders to assorted
advocacy misdeeds.

his calf would have if he called the tail a
leg, replied, ‘Five’; to which the prompt
response was, ‘Calling the tail a leg
would not make it a leg.’” 4

Opposing Argument Is Weak
“Has it not got down as thin as the
homeopathic soup that was made by
boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had
starved to death?” 5

Opposing Argument Lays
Down a Barrage of Verbiage
[Opponent] “is playing cuttlefish, a
small species of fish that has no mode
of defending itself when pursued except by throwing out a black fluid,
which makes the water so dark the enemy cannot see it and thus it escapes.” 6

Opponent Makes Too Many
Arguments

“Many silly reasons are given, as is
usual in cases where a single good one
is not to be found.” 7

Opponent Stays Only
Technically within the Law
“That reminds me of an hotel-keeper…
who boasted that he never had a death
in his hotel … for whenever a guest was
dying in his house he carried him out to
die in the street.” 8

Opponent Adheres to Rigid
Position Regardless of Changed
Circumstances

When a boy who was plowing asked
where to strike the next furrow, his
father told him: “Steer for that yoke
of oxen standing at the further end
of the field.” The boy resumed plowing, the father left, and then the distant yoke of oxen started to wander.
Following instructions and following
the oxen, the boy ended up plowing a
crooked circle. 9

Some of these may sound slightly
smart-aleck, but how could a judge hold
that against you when you are quoting
Honest Abe? Whatever you do, be careful with the one Lincoln line known to
all: “You can fool all the people some
of the time; you can fool some of the
people all the time; but you can’t fool all
the people all the time.” Like many of
Lincoln’s sayings, though, this may be
one he never actually said. 10 NWL

USING LINCOLN’S LOGIC IN YOUROWN ARGUMENTSby Patrick S. Brady

Opponent Misrepresents Your
Position

“When a man hears himself somewhat
misrepresented, it provokes him — at
least, I find it so with myself. But when
the misrepresentation becomes very
gross and palpable, it is more apt to
amuse him.” 2

Opponent Interprets Critical
Text by Moving Words Around
[This amounts to] “a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which
a man can prove a horse chestnut to be
a chestnut horse.” 3